


any good Aragonese left

by basketofnovas (slashmarks)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Gen, Historical Hetalia, Politics, Spain is Al Andalus (Hetalia), Spanish Inquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 21:11:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18302018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/pseuds/basketofnovas
Summary: Castile and Aragon argue about jurisdictional rights, the Inquisition and the whereabouts and well-being of Juan Coscón's Morisco tenants. Spain himself is only tired. Thematic R.





	any good Aragonese left

**Author's Note:**

> The information you really need for this fic:
> 
> Castile and Aragon were united by the marriage of Isabel I and Ferdinand II, ostensibly equally, in practice not so much. The fueristas were a group championing traditional Aragonese legal rights in that context.
> 
> The Moriscos were a group of Muslims who had been converted by force and their descendents, who were known to frequently practice crypto-Islam in secret and were subject to discrimination and persecution. Originally there was no legal distinction between a converted Christian and one baptized near birth; by the point this fic is set in, Morisco had become a term used in legal practice.
> 
> I write Spain as Al Andalus mostly because it's fun and allows for scenarios like this one. There's a reference to Castile as a separate nation somewhere, and he clearly exists before Spain was unified, so I jumped back to the last time Spain was unified.
> 
> The title is explained in the end notes along with the rest of the affair Castile and Aragon are talking about.

Antonio - his name was Antonio now - had never met the Crown of Aragon before. He had only seen her from a distance; and that recently. Unlike her sister, she lived the life of a human noblewoman, shut up behind walls of stone or walls of attendants; not someone he had the chance to meet as the nation of Al Andalus.

He suspected that Aragon would have behaved differently in the course of a routine introduction.

"Mother of God, I cannot believe you!" she shrieked at the top of her lungs, stalking from the doorway into the hall. The doorman fluttered at her elbow uncertainly, clearly feeling she should not be allowed to behave like this but probably under instruction to grant her entrance. "Teresa, get down here and show your damned face, or are you going to get them to clap me in irons for heresy, too!"

She had walked straight past him without sparing him a second look, and was on her way to the stairs. He winced, and wondered if _he_ should go retrieve Teresa - the Crown of Castile, Aragon's sister and his own wife now - for her.

"Depends," Teresa said flatly from a completely different direction, across the hall from Antonio. She had just appeared in another door. "Are you guilty of heresy?"

Antonio jumped. Aragon shrieked, whirled, and began storming back down the steps, a complicated affair in her current dress. "Well, apparently cursing your damned luck at a game is heresy now, so I suppose I am! God has damned all our luck, apparently, to have you for a sovereign!"

Antonio winced at that.

Teresa's face barely moved. She looked exhausted under the makeup - it wasn't quite thick enough to hide the dark circles under her eyes, nor her corset rigid enough to excuse her stiff, pained posture. He had thought her still at court himself; if he hadn't noticed her in the house she must have just returned. 

"Then you should confess that to the Inquisition, not your sister," Teresa said, and did not address the suggestion she had violated her sister's sovereignty,

"Is that a threat?" Aragon's eyes narrowed. Antonio wondered, idly, what her personal name was.

"Statement of fact." Teresa finally entered the room fully. She was definitely hiding a limp, and none too well. "And the opposite of a threat. I don't care about your religious practice." She glanced aside; seemed to see Antonio, the doorman, and the serving girl who'd come out at the commotion for the first time. "Maria, tell the kitchens my sister's here. My husband will eat with us," she pronounced.

Aragon looked at him for the first time herself and frowned. "Do you really want witnesses for this?"

"On the contrary. Antonio's exactly the witness for this." With that ominous proclamation, Teresa turned from them both and crossed the hall towards the dining room.

Antonio supposed he would have to go, and eat, and present the united front with Teresa that was his only real job at the moment.

God help him.

He trailed Teresa. Aragon caught up with him remarkably quickly for a woman wearing a farthingale. "I apologize for that scene," she said in a completely different tone of voice, rich and warm. "I'm sure you understand that there are circumstances where a loss of control is warranted. May I introduce myself? Joana Miquel."

He looked towards Teresa for a hint, and caught only the end of her skirts whipping around the doorway into the dining room. "Antonio Fernandez y Carriedo," he said, which seemed safe, and warily, "I understand, Doña."

"I regret that we didn't get a chance to speak at your wedding to my sister. I hope you've found the union..." A lengthy pause; Joana stopped in the doorway and looked right and left; then up and down her sister, dressed in the severe black of Castile. "Happy."

Her tone suggested that a marriage to her sister was likely to be anything but.

"Entirely," Antonio said emotionlessly, and pulled out a chair for her.

She seemed ready to launch back into a tirade the second they had all sat down, but Teresa cut her off by inquiring about her estates; her Parliament; the crops in Aragon; and seemed liable to head off into Ottoman piracy when Joana's patience appeared to snap. She slapped a hand down on the table; the plates shook. "Sister. We have business."

"So I gather," Teresa said flatly. "You want someone released by the Inquisition."

"What I want," Joana hissed, "Is an explanation for the detention of Lope de Francia in Toledo--"

"Probably the explanation's blasphemy if that's what he was detained for--"

"On the business of acquiring manifestación for the tenants of Juan Coscón!" Joana finished triumphantly, and hit the table again. Antonio hoped she didn't break anything. Teresa didn't care for the furnishings of the house - not having had the wealth for many of significance for most of her life - and it would fall to him to deal with the damage.

Teresa seemed neither angry nor dismayed by the pronouncement, only confused. "That right only applies on Aragonese soil."

He had only a general impression of what manifestación meant; but Juan Coscón sounded vaguely familiar. Antonio searched his memory.

"I'm not talking about Lope de Francia--!"

"You just said you were."

"Not originally! The Inquisition of Saragossa arrested Juan Coscón's tenants and Lope de Francia is trying to get them out of that Christ-damned dungeon."

Oh. Antonio remembered where he'd heard the name now.

"Manifestación doesn't apply to arrests for religious reasons," Teresa said blandly.

Joana appeared about to spit at her. Antonio realized his own hands were shaking and put them rapidly in his lap under the table, before either of them saw.

"Religious reasons! You haven't even asked what crime they were arrested for--"

"Right. I think I see the trouble." Teresa picked up the wine goblet the serving girl had just filled and drank briefly. "Let me help you. The Inquisition determined in secret meetings that they may declare any arrest they make's for religious reasons. Does that explain a few things about the case?"

Antonio drained his own cup, and asked Maria to refill it with a different vintage. The girl looked terrified; two nations shouting at each other was a lot to endure for any human, let alone the servant of one of them. He could at least get her out of the room.

"All arrests," Joana said quietly, as Maria fled. "All arrests." Her voice rose. "I see. _All_ arrests."

"That's what I said," Teresa confirmed quietly. The light caught her eyes as she turned her head; for a moment Antonio could see that they were bloodshot. He wondered why she was limping, come from court and not battle. 

"So manifestación would never apply."

"That's the idea." Teresa seemed ready to continue in her bland defense; but then she looked up and met Joana's eyes. "I didn't support it."

"But you won't say a word against it, will you?" 

Teresa looked at him, and her sister followed her gaze. Antonio looked down at his hands, and willed them to be still. "Some battles are just an excuse for dragging you out into a vulnerable position. There's no point fighting the Inquisition." She looked back at Joana. "You should tell the fueristas to give up. They're fighting a lot more than Castilian hegemony right now." 

Teresa swallowed. "The Inquisition's going to release Lope de Francia soon - I know they tried to charge him with judaizing because they found out about his ancestry, but he wouldn't confess, to that or to blasphemy. He'll be. Well. I don't know about _fine_ , but the damage is done. You won't do him any favors making them angry all over again while he's still in jail in Toledo."

"So you _had_ heard about the case," Joana snapped. "I knew 'That right only applies on Aragonese soil,' and 'Probably the explanation is blasphemy' were horse shit-"

"And Juan Coscón's tenants?" Antonio said quietly. This was interesting, because he didn't remember authorizing his mouth to speak. 

Both sisters stared at him, apparently shocked by his entrance into the conversation.

"But they're only Moriscos, of course," he said, and grasped his cup before realizing it was empty.

Teresa silently handed him hers; he drained it instead.

Joana was eyeing him speculatively. "Yes. I don't just want Lope de Francia out of prison, Teresa. I want the Morisco tenants released. If the Inquisition has an issue with Juan Coscón arming them they can arrest him for it instead."

"Does he know you're arguing that?" Teresa said, which Antonio had to agree seemed doubtful.

"He'd love to have words with the Inquisition of Saragossa," Joana said, which was either a lie or a sign the man was insane.

Teresa seemed to believe it, though. "Well, get him to say it in public and I can arrange it, just like Ariño," she snapped. 

"I take it that's the royal Castilian we, since you weren't involved--"

"You're pretty sure of that?" Teresa's lips twisted bitterly.

"It isn't the kind of thing you would do," Antonio said, interjecting for the second time and again bringing them briefly to silence.

They were probably going to shout at each other about jurisdiction all night if he didn't do something; and he didn't have the energy to endure it. Sunset was coming on. Teresa usually avoided his presence any time when he might be praying, and while Antonio wasn't quite that suicidal, he thought through the motions at the right time when possible.

"Teresa, I believe you're trying to tell Joana you don't support the arrests, but you don't have any way of influencing the situation, correct?" he said.

Teresa scowled into the table top. "Yes," she said, clipped.

"Joana," he said, "Is there any specific action you want Teresa to take, that you believe is within her power?"

Joana glowered. "Tell me where the Morisco tenants are being held so we can press the damned writ if we get another one. And I want your assurance Lope de Francia and Ariño will both be released within three months, or I'm taking it to the Inquisition in Toledo and you can fish _me_ out of jail. I may not be a soldier like you, but I'm not scared of a little pain."

Teresa hesitated a long moment, then said, "Both of those men are supposed to be released by then. The tenants..."

"Teresa," Antonio said quietly. He didn't dare make a specific appeal in front of Joana, whatever she might claim to believe. Instead he put all of his exhaustion, his desperation, into that word.

"I'll write it down for you," Teresa said after a moment. "I've been commanded not to discuss the whereabouts of prisoners. Maria!" She raised her voice. "Get me pen and paper!"

**Author's Note:**

> "If there were any good Aragonese left, they would throw Gárate off the bridge" -Don Francés de Ariño; speaking of a lawyer colleague of his who agreed to be released by arbitration instead of bringing the Inquisition to court and potentially getting a binding precedent.
> 
> This was all during an incident from the 1560s which is complicated enough I probably can't completely summarize it here - for the full version, see _Muslims in Spain: 1500 to 1614_ by L. P. Harvey. In brief: there was a local conflict over an irrigation canal and the lord of two villages concerned, Juan Coscón, armed his tenants, some of whom were Moriscos. There had recently been an edict requiring Moriscos in Aragon to handin their weapons. The Inquisition arrested some of the tenants, and Juan Coscón went to the body representing lords with Morisco tenants for help.
> 
> That body of lawyers, including Ariño, attempted here to invoke the right of manifestación, which required anyone detaining someone in Aragon to hand them over to a special jail and court system to enact justice. The Inquisition foiled them by means like refusing to tell them where the tenants were actually being held and insisting the arrest was for 'religious reasons' and manifestación couldn't be invoked. They also threatened to arrest Ariño on the spot; he replied that he wished they would, because all of Aragon would turn out to free him! The Inquisition didn't arrest him then.
> 
> At this point the Inquisition summoned the notary Gárate, reminded him he couldn't talk about his interrogation, and determined his answer wasn't agreeable enough and arrested him. The other lawyers put up a fuss; he was eventually freed by arbitration from the governor, which involved no court case that might have set a limit to the Inquisition's power in Aragon and resulted in the title quote. They attempted to appeal the issue, eventually got the documents they needed from the local Inquisition by showing up day after day with a crowd of staff, nobility and common citizens so large the Inquisition couldn't conduct business, and sent Lope de Francia to Toledo to the Suprema of the Inquisition in Toledo.
> 
> There, they didn't have local support and Lope de Francia was arrested on his second visit and charged with a number of ridiculous things mentioned above; he did not confess to anything and was eventually charged with "troubling and disturbing the Holy Office" and given minor penalties, which he successfully evaded by appealing the fines and insisting that the Inquisition record that all of this was over manifestación of the tenants, at which the Inquisitor-General got involved and ordered him released. Ariño was also arrested back in Aragon; the Inquisition held him for a few months over local protest and then freed him.
> 
> We don't know the fate of the Morisco tenants.
> 
> Other historical notes: 
> 
> At this point in Spain both the corset and the farthingale (hoop skirt) were in fashion for I believe the first time. Castile was known for a court style involving a lot of black, and thick light makeup was common to women. Here's a sample picture: Isabel de Valois, Queen of Spain.
> 
> The Inquisition was known to routinely [torture prisoners](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/torturers-apprentice/308838/) in order to obtain confession and to intimidate. It also tortured as a punishment among other things.
> 
> While the marriage of Al Andalus and Castile might seem dubious, especially with a female Castile, the Church originally encouraged Old Christian families (aka, non-converts) to marry New Christians in order to assimilate them, and this did apparently happen fairly routinely with both male and female Old Christians - see _Muslims in Spain: 1500 to 1614._


End file.
